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it has been cold here for the last 2 weeks(below 15 degrees). it has been too cold to open the hives to check them. This morning at my firsr hive that I started to regress I found many parts of bees on the landing board. So I reached in with a wire piece and pulled out about 100 bees that were in parts. I have a good mouse gard on this hive and there were no tracks in the snow around the hive and the hive next to it had no bee parts on the bottom board.
Any ideas on whats happening. I can still here activity in the hive
Clint

From my experience this is usually due to bees that crawl into a cell and die. The bees tear them apart extracting them from the cells where they died. A lot of them is usually from mites or starvation. If it's only a little I wouldn't worry too much, but something is probably not entirely right.

thanks for the reply. The hive in question is a 3 high and still weighs about 125 lbs and has been treated with FGMO cords and fogged every week last year. Also before wrapping a grease patty with spearmint was placed on the topbars of the top supper.
Clint

If you're suspecting a mouse, make sure you know the difference between the wax flakes from uncapping honey and bigger chunks of wax from a mouse chewing. Mice are devestating. Even if it is, I'm not sure what you can do about it right now. A mouse in a hive in winter is in heaven. All the food they can eat, a warm place to sleep. Doubful you can lure them out with any kind of bait.

I'm sure it's not a mouse as a mouse gard was installed in November and there is no larger debree like I have had in previous years when I had a mouse get in a hive. It was probably the quick cold and the bees cleaning the dead out of the comb.
Clint